RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COGNITIVE COMPETENCE (KNOWLEDGE) AND ACADEMIC MOTIVATION AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS: EXAMINING INTRINSIC MOTIVATION, EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION, AND AMOTIVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

Global competence has grown in significance as a part of the curriculum in higher education because students should develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that promote effective learning and participation in a rapidly changing world. In this general competency framework, cognitive competence is viewed as knowledge and understanding that underlie students’ learning and academic participation. This research focused on the correlation between cognitive competence and the academic motivation of undergraduate students. A quantitative correlational design was used. The data were collected from 1200 undergraduate students studying in Education departments of three universities in Lahore. Cognitive competence was measured using the knowledge and understanding dimension of the Global Competence Scale adapted from Liu et al. (2020) and the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) was used to measure academic motivation. Using Pearson product-moment correlation, the relationships between knowledge and intrinsic motivation, between knowledge and extrinsic motivation and between knowledge and amotivation were explored. The results indicated that there were meaningful positive correlations between intrinsic motivation and knowledge (r = .35, p < .001); and there was a meaningful positive correlation between extrinsic motivation and knowledge (r = .26, p < .001). There was also a significant but very weak negative relationship between knowledge and amotivation (r = −.099, p = .001). In general, the results showed that knowledge and understanding is dimension of cognitive competence and is significantly correlated with intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation among undergraduates.